As the article states, he was one of the first of his type of conservative DJs, so I think it's fair to put him at the front of the parade, rather than just going along for the ride.

He was certainly a producer of our times, in that he fanned many flames and attracted a fanbase/cult whose actions/opinions he informed. But he was also a product of our times, in that people with a media platform/spotlight now have the tools to make money by leading the masses, whereas such opportunity wasn't available before the explosion of broadcast/cable media, subsequently amplified by social media.

IIRC, he ran the country from Florida in a Bermuda shirt.

Ran the country but couldn't fix the problems. I actually think he was given more prominence as a noise/distraction by people who really ran the country, which is entirely normal.

It will certainly be interesting how history plays out on the last 20 years in America. So much has happened both good and evil. I wonder who/what will make the cut in the history books.

Interesting, certainly, but tricky: who gets to write the history books?

AskHistorians, in due course. They disagree violently amongst themselves offstage but will fight alongside each other to stop anyone else saying the truth in public. You can be a primary source: They decide its validity.

Mostly I do now believe History needs 50+ years to get distance from the personal. I like Martin Gilbert and Anthony Beevor immensely. I've had both Russian, and American historian-aligned-people take them down gloriously. I don't think either Gilbert or Beevor are seen in good standing, all the time by people in Moscow and Harvard.

Both. Everyone is a product of their times, but Rush was also unequivocally one of the primary influencers of American conservative and Republican politics in his lifetime.

I'd say both. He took prevailing conservative groupthink of the Lee Atwater school and weaponized it to become one of the OG alt-reich trolls[1], to quote somebody who apparently plays too many JRPGs.

> The man was a fucking demagogue. He made his fortune peddling cryptofascist propaganda while calling himself a “conservative”. He helped set the stage for the resurgence of right-wing authoritarianism, white supremacy, and neo-Nazism in the United States. He was the OG alt-reich troll, and his grave should have a pay toilet in place of a headstone.

[1]: https://demifiend.org/articles/good-riddance-rush-limbaugh.h...

I think Father Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh and Joseph Kennedy have deeper roots in the American view of everything. Rush riffed on it, but he drunk from a well other people dug.

And he had enablers. To me, its like the post-death glorification of Reagan because <cold-war> =It's bullshit.

So "in our times" yea, he was a primary shaper. In broad sense? he was a follower. He had a script. Other people helped write the script.

Both.